LOCKOUT

This is ""The Story of the Homestead Steel Strike,"" one of the most exciting chapters in labor history which does not usually attract, as it does so commandingly here, a wider general interest. Much of this is due to Wolff's handling of the case which was not only a fateful one for the industry but for the future of the labor movement as a whole with long-term repercussions from the time when in 1892 Henry Frick attempted to destroy unionism. It was the sort of conflict that ""does not determine who is right-- but who is left."" The crucial issue, even then, was automation; the formula was classic--a lockout; and it was followed by the intervention of an army of Pinkertons and the state militia. Every character in the drama, from rock-ribbed Flint to Berkman, the anarchist, who nearly assassinated him, is vitally understood and thoroughly alive... No matter which way you look at it, a striking book.